The 2000s: Rise of Indie Rock and the New New Wave

This is something I've been pondering for quite some time, and now that it's 2009 I feel like I can really talk about what rock music has meant for me in this decade.

The local Twin Cities music scene is undoubtedly one of the best (if not the best) place to find good rock and roll these days. But before I ever got started with the local scene halfway through this decade, I was listening to national acts like Green Day, Metallica, Rage Against The Machine, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and The Offspring. Those five bands defined the early part of the 2000s for me, though mostly with music that came out in the 80's and 90's that I hadn't actually gotten into until then.

It wasn't until my senior year of high school in 2004 that I began to really branch out and discover new music that originated in the 2000s. The first "new" band I really got into was The Strokes. My high school art teacher would play all sorts of random music during class, and about the only CD I found myself really into was Room on Fire by The Strokes, which had just come out about a year ago at the time.

I was instantly grabbed by the catchy twin guitar work, drum hooks, and lo-fi garage rock sound that harkened back to The Rolling Stones and other great 60's rock that I was raised on by my dad. I went out and bought both of the first two albums from The Strokes and proceeded to listen to them incessantly, with glee.

Songs like Reptilia and The Modern Age proved to be neck-snappingly good, in that I would rock out in such a fashion that if I listened to both albums back-to-back while driving I might have a sore neck afterwards from quickly snap-nodding my head so much. You'll get it if you listen to Is This It? (the whole album), believe me.

The Strokes are clearly one of the primary reasons of why Indie Rock came to be popular in the 2000s, as their infectiously-catchy brand of rock music has permeated to more than a few other bands that I know and love, whether national or just local. They may not have been the first for you, but I'll be damned if they aren't the best example of what pure Indie Rock has meant to me.

After graduating high school, I spent some quality time that summer of 2004 playing baseball, as was the case for pretty much my entire youth. But I was also watching MTV2 for Beavis & Butthead, Jackass, and the occasional rock music video countdown show that they used to do on MTV2, which they also used to do on MTV way back when...

One video that was getting pretty heavy rotation at the time was Mr. Brightside by The Killers. I didn't really pay too much attention to it at first, as I probably just sorted muted it and watched a little bit as I was doing something else on the computer. But it was on just so much at the time, so I was eventually intrigued enough to listen as well.

The song was insane, and the melody's instantaneous hook got me from the very beginning every time. To this day I will tell you that I believe that Mr. Brightside is arguably one of the greatest songs of this millennium (so far), because almost every second of it blows my mind. Sure Brandon Flowers has a tendency to write some of the stupidest lyrics these days (Human is the obvious example), but Mr. Brightside was a tour-de-force the likes of which almost no artist in the 2000s has come close to matching in my mind.

I finally bought Hot Fuss by The Killers in April of 2005 but only listened to it moderately. While Mr. Brightside, All These Things I've Done, and Jenny Was a Friend of Mine remain heavily-played amazing songs, there isn't too much else on the album I'm still into these days. And The Killers still lack enough focus (or songwriting) to really make a "complete" album in my opinion.

But The Killers aren't really Indie Rock, and they weren't really like anything else I was listening to at the time in 2005. It was synth-heavy pseudo-dance rock. It wasn't until I discovered another similar-but-unique band for me to be able to start formulating a "new" genre for this kind of music in my mind.

I spent the summer of 2005 at home doing mostly the same things again, as in baseball and MTV2. With no cable at college I wasn't able to follow much of anything new music-wise, and I had still yet to discover the local Twin Cities music scene. But there was one band in particular that was getting their videos played quite frequently on MTV2 that I found myself getting instantly fascinated by whenever one came on.

That band was The Bravery, the second quintessential quintet out of New York. (The Strokes are the first one obviously.) Their videos for An Honest Mistake and Fearless repeatedly blew my mind that summer, so much so that I finally borrowed their debut self-titled album from my sister. After one listen I was more-than-convinced that I needed to own it, so I bought The Bravery and proceeded to give it the Is This It?/Room on Fire treatment by playing it incessantly, with glee.

This was almost everything that The Killers weren't to me, in that every song was great yet still maintained an 80's rock and dance-like feel to them. It's funny that Brandon Flowers (of The Killers) had to go and pick a fight with the band, accusing them of coattail-riding with their success while being on the same label and all, because The Killers just can't match The Bravery in my opinion.

The Bravery's self-titled debut still gets heavy rotation on my iTunes, and it is up there with Stadium Arcadium by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and American Idiot by Green Day as my absolute favorite albums of this decade. There's at least one more album that I include in that group, but I'm saving that particular band for later...

With The Bravery firmly secured as one of my true-favorite bands and The Killers as another enjoyable band I was also into, I decided to call this particular genre the New New Wave. This synth-rock music called up such obvious 80's New Wave influences as Duran Duran, but the 80's New Wave band I was most into growing up was The Cars. And I heard a lot of The Cars in these two bands, albeit with a new and different kind of spin to it with the strong dance infusion.

So with Indie Rock (The Strokes, The Hives, The White Stripes) growing out of 60's rock and garage and the New New Wave (The Bravery and The Killers) rising from 80's rock and New Wave, I've covered all of the great bands I love in those two genres, right? Well, almost...

There is one band, by far one of my true favorites, that actually may have crossed over. Their debut album was catchy guitar-driven Indie Rock, yet their latest release is more synth-heavy New New Wave. Who could this be do you ask? Well, as they might say, four guys from Glasgow who started a band together. Franz Ferdinand.

My first real exposure to Franz Ferdinand was from playing Madden 2005, the last Madden game I ever bought. (When you're getting basically the same thing year-in and year-out it's not really worth buying anymore.) Franz Ferdinand's epic single Take Me Out was on the soundtrack and proved to be one of the best songs by far. I couldn't help but rock out to it every time it came on.

A few months later I finally saw the video for This Fire, yet another hugely catchy guitar-driven winner for me. I had to buy their self-titled debut album and I did, and it may very well be the greatest album of the 2000s for me.

Quite literally every single song on Franz Ferdinand's self-titled debut is mind-blowing to me. Yet I was actually scared the very first time I listened to it when Jacqueline's acoustic opening made me wonder what this band was up to for about the first 45 seconds. But then the song kicked it and I really got into it, dance-rocking my way through Tell Her Tonight, Take Me Out, and The Dark Of The Matinée.

And then there was Auf Achse. A hauntingly dark intro brought the mood down yet still stayed really catchy. And then the lyrics, oh the lyrics... they were literally like a knife through the heart for me at the time. And I'm not even an emo!

You see her, you can't touch her
You hear her, you can't hold her
You want her, you can't have her
You want to, but she won't let you
You see her, you can't touch her
You hear her, you can't hold her
You want her, you can't have her
You want to, but she won't let you

I found myself frozen after that song, amazed at how powerful and true it was for me on so many levels. But Cheating On You brought the mood back up to dance-alicoius right in time for This Fire and Darts of Pleasure. But then it got a little scary again...

Michael. What am I supposed to think about a song with my name (and nothing else) attached to it? Sure it's probably one of the most common names in the world, but it's still mine. The homo-erotic lyrics weirded me out at first but I was too caught up in how catchy the song was to even care.

This album literally didn't miss a beat for me on its very first play-through, as Come On Home and 40' closed it all out in style. The fact that I can still recall the first time I ever heard the album is a testament to how awesome it was for me back then, and it still is to this day. Matter of fact, Franz Ferdinand is the only album in my iTunes with literally every track over 100 plays, and nobody else is even close to achieving that yet.

So yes, Franz Ferdinand. Amazingly mind-blowing Indie Rock band, right? Well, that would be only half-right now. Their new album, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand actually draws more heavily on the kind of synth sound that I associate with the New New Wave. Franz Ferdinand (2004) was a guitar-driven album, Tonight (2009) is a synth-driven album. But it still totally kicks ass! Go listen to the full near-8-minute version of Lucid Dreams and tell me what your mind went through when you get back.

But I don't think that Franz Ferdinand has flip-flopped Kerry-style from Indie Rock to New New Wave. Actually, I think that they're pushing themselves to be the middle ground connecting the two genres. The Beatles come to mind on this matter. Who else could go from I Wanna Hold Your Hand to Strawberry Fields Forever in five years or less? Franz Ferdinand is doing something similar in my opinion, albeit on not quite as drastic of a level.

In the end, when I look back on the music of this decade and think of the great new bands which really broke out in the 2000s, I can divide them into two distinct (but overlapping) genres: Indie Rock, led by The Strokes, and the New New Wave, led by The Bravery. Two bands who I hope and pray continue to make music for a long time, and also to influence future bands as well. We're really living in a 60's/80's era of sonic revival, which is great in that it's given us such amazing music with strong influences. I look forward to the 2010s though, cause I can't wait to hear the next Led Zeppelin...